SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 1, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ -- World Congress of Families IX today announced that M. Russell Ballard, an apostle and general authority for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), will be a keynote speaker during its opening session on October 27, 2015, in Salt Lake City.

Elder Ballard has long been an advocate of the natural family, as has the LDS Church, which in 1995 issued "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," stressing the importance of families and defining the church's official position on family and marriage.

Speaking of the Proclamation during the church's October 2005 General Conference, Elder Ballard said: "It was then and is now a clarion call to protect and strengthen families and a stern warning in a world where declining values and misplaced priorities threaten to destroy society by undermining [the family which is]...the basic unit of society, of the economy, of our culture, and of our government."

Elder Ballard has been a member of the LDS church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles since Oct. 6, 1985, and in that capacity has represented the church on assignments throughout the world. From 1976 to 1985, Elder Ballard served in the First Quorum of Seventy for the LDS Church and as a member of the Presidency of the Seventy from 1980 to 1985. He also served in a variety of leadership positions for the church, including president of the Canada Toronto Mission.

"We are pleased to announce Elder Ballard as a keynote speaker," said Janice Shaw Crouse, a member of the board of directors of WCF and executive director of the World Congress of Families IX. "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long been a strong ally to the World Congress of Families and it is an honor to have one of its senior apostles speak at our conference—particularly someone whose lifelong commitment and leadership has been to preserve and strengthen the family unit."

The World Congress of Families (WCF) is the largest gathering of pro-family advocates in the world. WCF IX will seek to provide sound scholarship and effective strategies, and it will mobilize intellectual and advocacy resources to affirm and defend the natural family as the fundamental and only sustainable unit of a free society.

World Congress of Families IX will be held Oct. 27-30, 2015, in Salt Lake City. For more information, please visit WCF9.org or follow WCF on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.